Why Women Stopped Having Children

Rod Berne is a student, writer, and thought criminal. His columns run every Saturday. Follow him on Twitter.

Many people have pointed to the collapsing birthrate in Western societies and questioned why middle-class young women aren’t having children at the same rates as their mothers and grandmothers. Some people have pointed to factors including careerism, feminism, and an orchestrated plan directed by the elite. This article will discuss why the system wants women to see motherhood as a low-status pursuit.

Education, Fertility, And Status

More education = fewer children (Source: The World Bank)

It is widely known that less educated young women have children at much higher rates than middle-class women. For women with a high school education or less, 62% have children by age 25. For women with bachelor’s degrees, that number drops to just 26%. For women with advanced degrees, the number drops still further.

One reason for this is because for poor girls, motherhood elevates their status. It’s better to be poor with a kid than poor without one. Women with few prospects in life realize that having a child affords them a certain respect and status in their communities that single women don’t have.

While it may offend our more noble sensibilities, motherhood is a sort of status characteristic. It either increases their status or reduces it depending on their environment. Women care about what the people around them care about—they are susceptible to pressures of conformity. This then boils down to a simple question: What does the community value?

If it values motherhood and elevates it to a position of importance, women will pursue it. If it values degrees in sociology and a corporate or government career, women will pursue that. In a sterile, career-driven environment, motherhood is not assigned the high status lower-class communities give it. Mothers tend to be seen as less competent in the workplace. They are also seen as less suitable for positions of authority.

Women are trained to value these things and if motherhood is an obstacle, than it has to go. Increasingly in the West, being a mother is at best neutral in terms of social status, but more often a negative.

Women think the new iPhone is higher status than a newborn baby.

Additionally, women having kids prior to grinding out their peak childbearing years in college to get a worthless degree is seen as a waste of “potential.” Our society has conditioned women into thinking that they have more to offer society by becoming a drone to make their (likely male) corporate masters more money. Giving their best years to their families and shaping young human lives are not afforded nearly the same social status as becoming a paper pusher in a cubicle.

I’m sure that when a career woman is on her deathbed, her last thoughts will revolve around whether she reached the highest levels of the career ladder and made her bosses and shareholders enough money. Certainly she won’t think of their husband, children, or grandchildren—that’s nothing compared to the fulfillment won by spending time in soul-sucking meetings with people she hates.

Being “Just A Mom” Isn’t Enough, So Get To Work

The perfect way to spend your childbearing years.

Furthermore, motherhood is not seen as a point of pride anymore. Take a look at the vast array of articles with titles like “I Love My Son, But I’m More Than Just A Mom.” Notice the “just” in the title, suggesting that being a caretaker for the next generation is a trivial matter. These articles frequently include the word “just” in the title as if people in society actually dismiss these women with phrases like, “You’re just a mom.” Have you ever heard anyone say that? Me neither.

In these cases, what is happening is that these women have developed feelings of insecurity and inferiority. They themselves have fallen into society’s trap of thinking motherhood isn’t special enough. They then project these feelings into the world, thinking everyone views them as merely a mother.

Young women pick up on these signals and shift their behavior accordingly. Seeing popular media articles bashing motherhood leads to women either not becoming mothers at all, or spending a few years working and then dividing their time between their families and their office job.

More important than your stupid career.

But why might these articles exist in the first place? Why would the media disseminate content proclaiming that motherhood isn’t enough—that women must also be career-driven workhorses? The answer is that the system knows it can’t completely scrub away the motherhood instinct from women, so instead women are told that being a mother isn’t enough.

The system knows that women must not be encouraged to draw satisfaction solely by raising a family and caring for her loved ones. She must be a producer for the system. Every moment you spend with your children is a moment you aren’t producing for a corporation, another moment you aren’t making money for someone else, another moment you aren’t feeding into the system.

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

Flagship ROK Shirt Has Landed!

After many months of delay, we have launched Red Kings Shop to provide you with ROK apparel that will Kratomize your testosterone levels, massively increase the size of your penis, and make you the most beloved shitlord in your city. Click here for launch details.

Donate To ROK

Are you getting great value from Return Of Kings? Are we helping improve your life? Then please consider giving back to allow us to continue operations. Click here to make a donation.